IT WAS NOT THAT LONG AGO that families would sit around a fireplace or dinner table and elders would pass along their collective wisdom. They would share their family’s oral history and entertain their children and grandchildren with stories that would ultimately shape their faith, beliefs, and character. By knowing their own family’s history, those children understood their place in the world. Their legacy was a North Star they could follow. Their legacy was their internal compass.

TODAY, as people change jobs, parents get divorced, and kids are shuffled around – the elders rarely have the opportunity to teach their traditions, share their wisdom, and pass along those important family stories. Recent generations of kids have more activities, more gadgets, and many more distractions. They have everything but a deep understanding of their family’s history. And those priceless photographs, antique documents, passports, ledgers, love letters, and recipes keep fading and getting more brittle everyday. They probably won’t survive for a next generation to embrace.

Why we started this business

THIS BUSINESS BEGAN 2007 — the year we lost both of our parents. My daughter Alyse was ten years old at the time and she adored her Grandma Kitten. But when mom died we realized Alyse wasn’t old enough to really know much about her grandmother’s life. She would never hear for herself how much they laugh alike or be able to identify with Kitten’s sweet Southern accent. Without any audio or video recordings, she would never know the sound of her Grandma’s voice or hear her stories told in her own words.

WE FELT A SIMILAR LOSS WITH OUR FATHER. Joe was a colorful storyteller. He talked about his family that fought heroically at King’s Mountain and one who survived the spectacular Sultana ship explosion at the end of the Civil War. His lineage goes back through Jamestown’s Mayflower descendants and all the way to Norwegian vikings who settled on Scotland’s Orkney Islands. But we never recorded his stories. We didn’t tape his oral history and we have no videos to share with our daughter or with future generations.

It was this mistake that inspired us to start this business.

OUR GOAL is to encourage the Baby Boomer to embrace their role as the Story Keeper. To be the hero who preserves their family’s history. At McCamish Media we assist with the complexities of researching, recording and preserving personal memoirs and family stories. From experience we know that every family’s history is more colorful, more inspiring and more significant and than the Story Keeper can possibly know. As your history unfolds the benefits for your family will be profound. We can record one story, a lifetime of stories, or generations of stories.

Why you need a personal historian

There are storytellers in every family

THERE ARE STORYTELLERS IN EVERY FAMILY and they have an urgent desire to share their family stories. But too often these storytellers are casually dismissed by their families because they repeat their stories or anxiously abbreviate their experiences. The importance of their stories are lost on those with short attention spans. However, it’s these under-appreciated historians that are crucial to preserving a family’s history. And because every family has already lost many great oral storytellers – it’s urgent that families give them their attention and have their memories professionally recorded.

Why every family needs a story keeper

THE STORY KEEPER IS KEY to preserving their family’s history. They collect, organize and identify family photos. They know the history of the family heirlooms, they protect the family Bible, and they have a general knowledge about their ancestors. It’s a role with responsibilities , but without a story keeper, a family’s priceless history grows dimmer every day. The story keeper is the real hero of this story. They once-and-for-all protect and preserve their family’s history.

BABY BOOMER’S ARE NATURAL STORY KEEPERS. After the end of World War II, children born between 1946-1964 (Baby Boomers) enjoyed a new, unbridled optimism in America. Their parents had moved to the suburbs, worked hard, and started families. Later, these kids – the Boomers – went to college, launched businesses, traveled, and started their own families. Adult children know the sacrifices their parents made and know their parents’ and grandparents’ stories are the prequel to their own story. And it’s the Boomer’s children who want to know about their family’s authentic history. They want to know about their family’s own immigration story. Baby Boomers are the natural bridge between the generations.

HOWEVER, MOST BOOMERS DON’T HAVE THE TIME or know-how to take on this important task. Almost every family has made some effort to organize pictures and preserve family heirlooms. Many have searched “genealogy” online and some have joined Ancestry.com and grazed through the site. Others have bought archival storage boxes and started scrapbooks. But eventually the size and scope of the project and the time required becomes overwhelming, people get frustrated, and their efforts are reluctantly and slowly boxed up and stored away.

THE PROFESSIONALS AT McCAMISH MEDIA can organize personal memoirs, help tell one’s life story, and assist in exploring a family’s history. Team members at McCamish Media are trusted personal historians trained to step into a storyteller’s life, ask the right questions about family background, ancestors, events and the important experiences that shaped their family’s legacy. All interviews are private and by bringing in our production team, the family dynamics that often complicate these efforts, and often prevent their completion, are neutralized.

MANY FAMILIES HAVE BEGUN THE PROCESS. WE CAN HELP FINISH IT. After the initial consultation we can determine how many photos, recordings, diaries, letters, heirlooms and other assets can be used to tell the story. We have more than 22 years of printing and publishing experience. This is critical when digitizing, retouching and preserving your one-of-a-kind photographs to be used in your book or video. There is tremendous value in preserving valuable old photos, documents, and signatures before they deteriorate any further. We have extensive expertise organizing the production process, determining a timeline, and completing your project on schedule.

Who will make this happen?

YOU ARE THE KEY. By having your family’s history explored, recorded and preserved you will be honoring the lives of your parents, grandparents, and ancestors. You are recognizing and celebrating their lives, the sacrifices they’ve made and for the person they’ve helped you become. And for your children and future generations you will give them a solid foundation on which they will build their own life stories. When they read storybooks and history books they will no longer be just about other fantastic people, places and events. They will know about their own family explorers, what they accomplished, and of their role in American history. Once children discover where they came from and who they came from they will forever identify with their family’s heritage and they will be proud of their family name.